A Son of the Rock

Translated from the Czech Příliš hlučna samota, by Michael Henry Heim.
Harcourt, 1990. 98p.

Like Closely Observed Trains this book is short, indeed barely a novella, but it is beautifully written (and well translated into USian.)

For thirty five years Hanta has been compacting paper in a cellar room overrun with mice. During this time he has salvaged hundreds of rare books and stored them in his flat where they take up all the space and even hang over his bed, like a sword of Damocles ready to fall.

Spiced up with reminiscences of Hanta’€™s early life and encounters with his suppliers and his boss there is a characteristic Eastern European air of strangeness about the novella which borders on magic realism but does not quite stray into it. While Hanta is working he sometimes has visions of various philosophers, plus Jesus and Lao-Tze, and ruminates on the fate of the mice caught up in his compactor, the battles between rats occurring beneath his feet and the necessities of having an “€œother”€ to confront.

The routine of his job is underlined by the repetition in nearly every chapter’€™s first line of his statement about thirty five years spent compacting paper. This could be a metaphor for the dreariness of life under a dictatorship, or just of a relatively uneventful life in general. Yet there is incident too, little sparks of colour, variation and human interaction.

The book is effectively a monologue, with little dialogue to speak of, presenting a bleak outlook on life – and, surprisingly for an Eastern European novel, absolutely no sex (although a gypsy woman does offer) – but Hrabal nevertheless engages our empathy and sympathy. Despite not having the same burden of history to freight the narrative Too Loud A Solitude easily stands comparison to Closely Observed Trains in terms of its examination of the human condition.